Most of us watch the cattle for heat stress and forget the animal doing half the work. A Border Collie or Heeler will keep bringing cattle long after it should have quit, because it wants to and because you keep sending it. Dogs don’t sweat much. They dump heat by panting, and once the air is hot and the humidity climbs after an afternoon storm, panting stops keeping up. A dog can go from working hard to staggering in the span of one big gather, and by then you’re a long way from the truck.
By mid-June the foothill pastures are cured out enough that a full day of gathering means a dog covering three or four miles for every one you ride. That’s a lot of engine running in the heat. The dogs that get in trouble are usually the young keen ones and the honest old campaigners — the ones that won’t pace themselves.
Ride early and carry water for two
The single biggest thing you can do is start at daylight. Cattle move better in the cool and so does the dog. If you can be gathered and headed home by the time it hits the eighties, you’ve dodged most of the risk. Save the fence checking and the odd jobs for the hot part of the day and leave the dog in the shade.
Pack water for the dog the same way you pack it for yourself. A dog that’s working won’t always stop to drink out of a stock tank even when it passes one, so make it stop. Every stock pond, spring, and creek crossing is a chance to let it wade in and cool the belly and feet. If you’re horseback, a collapsible bowl and an extra bottle in the saddlebags weighs nothing. Learn what your dog looks like when it’s getting hot: the tongue goes wide and spatula-flat, the panting gets loud and frantic, and a dog that was reading cattle starts making dumb mistakes. That’s your signal to shut it down, not push through one more bunch.
If a dog goes down — wobbly, glassy, gums brick red or gray — get it wet immediately. Creek, tank, a bottle poured over the belly and groin and feet. Cool water, not ice, and get it to shade and air. Heat stroke in a dog is a real emergency and the ones that recover are the ones you caught early.
Watch the feet and the seeds
Rock and hard gumbo bake all afternoon. A dog running slickrock or a graveled road in July can blister its pads, and a footsore dog is done for a week. Check pads when you load up. If yours works a lot of hard ground, its feet will toughen through the season, but early summer is when the soft ones tear.
The nastier problem this time of year is grass awns. Cheatgrass, foxtail, needle-and-thread — all the seeds that dry down and work their way in. They lodge between toes, in ears, in eyes, and up the nose, and they burrow. A dog gnawing at one foot or shaking its head and pawing an ear needs a look right then. A seed between the toes that you catch tonight is a two-minute job with tweezers. The one you miss turns into an abscess and a vet bill and a dog you’re packing to town. Run your hands through the coat when you unload, especially the feet, the armpits, and the ears.
The truck box cooks too
A dog box on a flatbed sitting in the sun at the sale barn or the café gets deadly hot fast, same as a parked car. Park in shade, leave air moving, and don’t leave a dog shut in a hot box while you eat lunch. Aluminum boxes hold heat. If you’re hauling any distance in the heat of the day, that’s worth thinking about before you load up.
Conditioning matters as much as anything. A dog that’s been laying around the yard all spring and then gets asked for a hard day of gathering in June heat is the one that folds. Bring them along the way you’d leg up a horse — some real work in the cool weeks of May so the summer days aren’t a shock. Keep them lean. A fat dog throws heat worse and quits sooner.
Water, shade, an early start, and a hand run over the feet at the end of the day. None of it’s complicated. But a broke dog that’s honest and handy is worth more than most of what’s tied to the trailer, and it’s a lot easier to keep one sound than to start over with a pup.
